Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Three centuries of history – of Hopewell Township and the Woolsey family, who were among its earliest settlers – was acknowledged Saturday morning with the dedication of Woolsey Park.
Members of the Woolsey family traveled from near and far to attend the dedication ceremony. Woolsey Park is located at 221 Washington Crossing-Pennington Road, and for many years it was known as Alliger Park.
Woolsey Park holds a veterans memorial and a 9/11 memorial, as well as walking trails. Woolsey Brook runs through the park.
Although the 167-acre park had been named Alliger Park for the family that sold the land to Hopewell Township in 1998, historians and township officials agreed that “Woolsey Park” was a more fitting name.
That’s because the land had been continuously farmed by the Woolsey family for nearly 230 years, said David Blackwell, vice chairman of the Hopewell Township Historic Preservation Commission.
George Woolsey arrived in Hopewell Township in 1700 and bought 218 acres of land, of which 167 acres makes up the newly renamed Woolsey Park, Blackwell told the attendees. Woolsey’s grandfather settled on Manhattan Island in 1635.
George Woolsey, along with other families from today’s Queens, N.Y., bought land from the West Jersey Society investors group, Blackwell said. On his newly acquired farm, Woolsey planted corn and then wheat, which was a farmer’s cash crop.
Woolsey handed down the 218-acre farm to his son, Jeremiah Woolsey, who built a one-and-a-half story, Dutch-style house that still stands next to Woolsey Park. The house, which was built in 1765, is privately owned and is not part of the Hopewell Township park.
The Woolsey farm, meanwhile, was handed down from father to son over several generations until it was sold in 1929. Hopewell Township bought 167 acres of land from the Alliger family in 1998. But because seven generations of Woolseys had farmed the land, it was decided to rename the park for the Woolsey family.
“‘History is the memory of civilization, and without it, we cease to be civilized,’” Blackwell, of the township’s Historic Preservation Commission, said as he quoted the late Cornell University historian Michael Kammen.
The Woolsey family played an important role in the Revolutionary War, and a Woolsey family descendant also served in the Union Army during the Civil War, Blackwell said.
Jeremiah Woolsey served as a commissioner to recruit men to serve in the Revolutionary War. His son, Ephraim Woolsey, was a soldier and was one of several local farmers/soldiers who guided Gen. George Washington on his route to the Battle of Trenton.
Capt. Henry Harrison Woolsey, who was a Princeton University graduate, served in the 5th New Jersey Regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was wounded several times, but recovered and went back to battle – until he suffered a fatal injury at the siege of Petersburg, Va.
Given the Woolsey family’s history and ties to the Hopewell Valley, it is only fitting that Alliger Park should be renamed Woolsey Park, Blackwell said.
“Not that it matters that I say it, but I now pronounce you ‘Woolsey Park,’” Blackwell said, to smiles and some chuckles from the attendees.
Framed resolutions were handed out to Woolsey family members who attended the dedication ceremony – from as far away as Salt Lake City, Utah, to as close as Newtown, Pa.
Torrey Woolsey, who lives in Salt Lake City, said that she and her sisters, Allison and Kiley, knew the family had roots in Hopewell Township. Their father, Robert Woolsey, served in the U.S. Navy and later settled in Nevada.